All Rhodes Lead Here

by Zapata, Mariana

  Because Christmas was about spending it with people who mattered, and even though I wasn’t with my Florida family, I was still doing that.

  And truth be told, I was glad I was with Rhodes and Amos. It felt right.

  It took a minute to haul the huge box out and set it in the doorway into the living room; then I had to go back and grab the two bags I’d stuffed behind all their old jackets and vacuum. They eyeballed me as I moved everything else closer in trips.

  I went straight to Am and set the heavy gift on the floor in front of him. “I hope you like it, but if you don’t, too bad. All sales were final.”

  He gave me a weird look that made me laugh but ripped the paper off.

  He gasped.

  I knew Rhodes had bought him his guitar because I’d helped get him a discount. And pick out the woods and the stain. He hadn’t asked questions about how I’d gotten the discount or how I knew so much about guitars, and I wondered, not for the first time, if he truly had no idea who Yuki was when they’d briefly met. Amos had brought her up a few times in his presence, but he hadn’t batted an eyelash.

  Anyway, Am didn’t know he was getting a guitar yet.

  “This is vintage,” he gasped, running his hands over the weathered orange leather around the amp.

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at me, gray eyes wide. “For me?”

  “No, for my other favorite teenager. Don’t tell my nephews I said that.”

  Am’s shoulders slumped as he ran his hands over the amp that I’d bought from a small shop in California and had shipped here, which had ended up costing as much as the amp had.

  “Your other one is a little buzzy, and I thought it would be nice to have matching stuff,” I told him.

  He nodded and gulped a couple of times before looking back at me. “Wait a minute,” he said, getting up and disappearing down the hall toward his room. I met Rhodes’s eyes and made mine go wide.

  “I wanted to give him his gift before you give him you-know-what and he doesn’t care,” I whispered.

  “You spoil him. Even Sofie said it.”

  Sofie was his mom, who as I’d learned the day of Thanksgiving, was just a lovely fucking woman who loved her child more than I could have ever imagined. She had whispered to me no less than three times that Amos had been conceived artificially and that she loved her husband very much and Rhodes was a wonderful man.

  I shrugged. “He’s my little buddy.”

  He smiled.

  “I’m sorry for messing up your traditions….” I trailed off, and he shook his head.

  “Billy and Sofie both celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. I’ve only gotten to spend a couple with him, but he’s seemed pretty happy to me today considering I know he’s missing his mom and dad. He’s only been trying to act like he doesn’t.”

  “At least he’s got one dad here though.”

  His face went somber. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

  I’d almost screwed that up. “You’re not making me sad. I’m okay.” I stopped talking when Amos came back out, holding something in a Happy Birthday bag in his hand. I recognized it as the one that Jackie had given him his present in months ago.

  He held it out to me. No warning, no explanation, no nothing. Just: here it is.

  “You thought of me,” I said, even though in the back of my head I wondered if he’d run into his room to get something old he didn’t use anymore and regift it. But honestly, I wouldn’t care. I had just about everything, and if there was something I wanted, I could buy it. It was just rare that I did. I had traded in my car out of necessity; I hadn’t even splurged on buying the “right” winter clothes or shoes yet, despite Clara giving me a hard time when I complained about my toes being cold from my too-thin hiking boots.

  I opened the bag and took out a heavy yellow leather notebook with an A on the front.

  “So you can write new songs in it,” Am explained as I traced my finger over the engraved letter.

  I swallowed.

  My chest hurt.

  “But if you don’t like it—”

  I raised my gaze to his, telling myself I wouldn’t cry. I had cried enough in my life, but these tears wouldn’t be ones of grief. I wouldn’t mourn the words I had lost, the ones that had arced through my head for years, nearly endlessly… until they hadn’t.

  Amos had no idea. Because I hadn’t told him yet. I had to. I would.

  A tear pooled right at the corner of my eye, and I wiped it with my knuckle. “No, I love it, Am. I love it a lot. That’s so thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

  “Thanks for my amp,” he replied, watching me closely like he was expecting me to lie or something.

  “Can I get a hug?”

  He nodded again and stood up, wrapping me up in the tightest hug he’d ever given me. I kissed his cheek and he surprised me by kissing mine back. Am took a step back, his face more than just a little bit bashful.

  I almost cried, but I didn’t want to embarrass him. When I was able to, I bent down and handed Rhodes the two bags I’d gotten for him. “Merry Christmas, Tobers.”

  He took them with a lift of his eyebrows at his nickname before saying in his bossy voice, “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

  “You haven’t needed to do half the nice things you’ve done for me, but you did, especially today. It’s snowing, and dinner was so good, and we played dominos, and I think this might be the best Christmas Eve I’ve ever had. But don’t be disappointed because your present isn’t as cool as Amos’s.”

  Those gray eyes met mine as he shoved his hand into the first bag and pulled out a frame.

  “I hope you like it. You’re both so cute. The other one I took off your Facebook page,” I explained.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded. The first picture was the one I’d taken of him and Amos on the hike to the waterfalls so many months back. They had been standing close together at the bottom of the falls and had grudgingly agreed to let me take a picture of them being too cool to purposely be shoulder to shoulder. But still good enough.

  “I didn’t know what to get you, and you don’t have any pictures of you two together in here.”

  He slipped his hand back into the bag and pulled out a second frame. This one I hadn’t been sure about. I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. It was a photograph of a young Amos with a dog.

  Rhodes swallowed hard once, those eyes lingering over the photograph for a long moment. He pinched his lips together, then got up and pulled me up and into his arms so quickly and tightly, I couldn’t breathe.

  “There’s a gift card to the shop too. I had to give the store your business,” I managed to mumble out around his sweater and pectoral muscle.

  Then I stopped talking and let myself snuggle into that incredible body holding mine hostage. My cheek was against his chest, arms wedged against my body from his hold. He smelled just like his laundry detergent and clean man.

  I loved it.

  I loved him, this quiet man who took care of the people around him. In little ways. In little actions that meant everything. He had a heart bigger than I ever could have imagined. It wasn’t like it had snuck up on me. It didn’t hit me on the back of my head. What I felt for him had walked right up to me, and I’d watched it happen.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, smoothing his hand from the crown of my head down my back to settle right at the small of it. His chest filled with air, and then he released it. It was a content sigh.

  And I loved that too.

  “I’m going to my room. What time are we leaving tomorrow?” Amos asked.

  He was referring to his aunt’s house. “We’re leaving at eight. If you want breakfast before we go, get up early enough, Am.”

  He wasn’t going to, and I was pretty sure we were both well aware of it, but Rhodes wouldn’t be a dad if he didn’t remind him anyway.

  The teenager huffed. “Okay. ‘Night.”

  “‘Night,” Rhodes and I both replied, and I
took that as my moment to pull back a little. Just a little. Tilting my head up, I smiled at the bristly face aimed down at me.

  “Thank you for letting me spend Christmas with you two.”

  His hand did that thing again where it cupped the back of my head and went down my spine, except that time, I think it might have gone a little lower, a little closer to my butt.

  I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all.

  “I know you wanted to see your aunt and uncle, but I’m glad you’re here. Real glad,” Rhodes admitted in that tough, quiet voice. His eyes were on mine, intense and hooded, as he said, “I’ve got your Christmas present upstairs. Come with me.”

  Upstairs, huh? The tingling was back… just not exclusively in my chest anymore. Was this happening?

  I wouldn’t know unless I went with him.

  I nodded and followed, watching him flip off the lights downstairs as we passed them. They hadn’t put up a tree, and Am and I had trudged back to the garage apartment to grab the tiny one I’d bought and decorated with dollar-store ornaments, and we’d propped it up on top of some books besides the TV. The lights were battery-operated, and neither of us bothered turning them off.

  Rhodes kept holding my hand as we got into his room, but it was me who kicked the door shut behind us. He glanced at me with surprise, and I smiled at him.

  “Sit. Please,” he said after a second, before ducking into his closet.

  I took a seat on the edge of the bed, tucking my hands between my thighs as he rooted around and produced two boxes. He’d wrapped them in brown paper, all nice and neat just like his ironing. He held out the smallest one first, stopping to kneel directly in front of me with the other box in hand.

  “Here,” he said.

  I smiled at him and slowly tore the paper, pulling out the gift inside and noticing the name printed on the top. My mouth formed an O.

  “Since you won’t buy your own,” he explained as I opened the box, moved the tissue paper aside, and pulled out the tall, slip-on boots with fleece-like lining around the tops. “Now your toes won’t be freezing every time you leave the house.”

  I hugged the boot to my chest. “I love them. Thank you.”

  “Make sure they fit,” he said, already reaching down for my foot and lifting it up. I didn’t say a word as I handed him the shoe and watched as he slipped it on me, giving it a couple jiggles to get it over my heel.

  His irises flicked up. “Good?”

  I nodded, my heartbeat starting to pound away in my throat, and he did the other one. I scrunched up my toes to make sure they had the perfect amount of room, even though I was having a hard time paying attention to anything other than him kneeling on the ground in front of me, putting my boots on for me. “Perfect fit. Thank you so much. I love them,” I breathed, giving him another smile.

  He reached to the side and handed me the second box.

  “You really didn’t have to,” I told him, already opening it.

  “I only got you things you need,” he explained.

  I smiled at him as I finished ripping the paper off and then the tape holding the box closed and opened it to find something tangerine-colored inside. It was a down jacket. I recognized the brand as one of the most expensive ones we carried at the shop.

  “It’s winter here a third of the year, and you’re always shivering when you come rushing in since that jacket of yours is too thin,” he said quietly. “We can return it if you’d rather get something else.”

  I set the jacket aside.

  And I threw myself at him.

  Literally.

  My arms went around his neck so fast he didn’t have time to brace, but somehow managed to, my cheek to his, my legs straddling his hips from where he’d been kneeling. And I hugged him. I hugged him just as tight as he’d hugged me after opening his frames.

  The jacket wasn’t a diamond bracelet or a ruby necklace. It wasn’t some expensive purse picked blindly just because it was expensive. It wasn’t a new laptop I didn’t need because my old one was only a year old.

  These were things I needed. Things that he knew I needed. Things to keep me warm because that mattered to him.

  They were two of the most thoughtful gifts I’d ever been given.

  “What’s this big hug for, huh?” he asked against my cheek as his arms went around the middle of my back, holding me steady on his lap as he rocked back to rest on his heels like we’d been in this position a hundred times before. “Are you getting upset?”

  There were tears in my eyes, tears that snuck onto his neck and the collar of his sweater. “I’m getting upset because you’re so nice. It’s your fault.”

  He hugged me a little tighter. “It’s my fault?”

  “Yes.” I pulled back a little, took in the heavy lines of his bone structure, his brows, that adorable chin, and I kissed him.

  Not like before, when they’d been pecks that had fed my soul with their sweetness, but really did it.

  Rhodes groaned as he kissed me back—our first real-real fucking kiss. His lips were as soft and perfect as I remembered, and I doubted there was a mouth in the world better than his. Tilting his head to the side, Rhodes kissed me slowly, softly. Still so sweetly. He took his time, his warm lips plucking at my bottom one, sucking the tip of my tongue and starting all over again, the palms of his hands going up and down my back, holding me to him and touching me all at the same time.

  There was no awkwardness. No hesitation. His hands mapped my body like they already knew it.

  We kissed and kissed, and that big palm slipped up the back of my sweater, fingers stretched wide, touching everything possible. So I did the same, sneaking my hand up under his side, palming the solid mass of muscles there and the skin over his ribs, earning a soft groan that I swallowed because I sure as hell didn’t want to stop kissing him again any time soon.

  Or ever, if I had the choice.

  I knew Rhodes cared about me like I knew the sky was blue, and some part of me thought he might be at least a little in love with me right back. He was affectionate in his own way. He taught me how to do things. He went out of his way to spend time with me. He never hid that he cared about me in front of other people. He supported me. He worried about me.

  If that wasn’t love, then I could still easily settle for all that the rest of my life.

  But for now, today, in this room, stroking his warm skin, all those hard muscles… with two of the most practical and sweet gifts I could have ever asked for… I wasn’t going to worry about more than what I had then. Which was more than I’d ever had.

  He wasn’t my ex. This man wouldn’t lead me on or use me. He liked having me around, because he liked me.

  And he just made me happy. His subtle smiles. His touches. Even his bossy britches voice. It all meant the world to me.

  He made me happy. And I had decided I was ready. More than ready.

  And I whispered those exact words to him as that callused palm snuck so deeply under my sweater his fingertips brushed that tender spot right between my shoulders.

  Rhodes growled, tilting me back in his lap just enough so he could look right into my eyes as he said, with that ferociously serious expression from the first night I’d walked into his life, “You have no idea.”

  Then he kissed me again, slow and deep and sweet. Not asking me if I was sure. Not hesitating. Showing me again that he trusted what I felt and what I wanted.

  And I had no idea that kiss was going to be the last of the sweetness.

  “Can I see you?” he asked, all husky and ready.

  I glided my hand as far up his back as I could possibly reach, his skin smooth. “You can do more than that.”

  His growl was deep in his throat as his other hand went to the bottom of my top, and he pulled it over my head. Those lips went straight from my mouth to my neck, leaving open-mouth kisses and nips there that had me instantly rolling my hips against his.

  Against his hard, hard dick.

  I’d felt… traces
of it before, all sleepy or semi-sleepy in his jeans and sweatpants when he would give me a hug, but never… never like this. Ready. Waiting. Excited and fully awake.

  It had been so long. We had taken our time. Built this up.

  Because he sure wasn’t indifferent at all as he groaned while I pressed against him as his mouth gave a hard suck at a spot between my neck and collarbone that had me whimpering. Rhodes leaned away for a moment, his throat bobbing, his breath heavy, that gaze moving from my face down to my breasts, held up by the green balconet bra I’d thrown on that pushed my breasts up to the top. The underwire sucked, but I’d never been gladder to have put that specific bra on in that moment until then.

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “Take it off.” His throat bobbed. “Please.”

  “You got it,” I whispered back, letting go of all his soft skin to reach back and pluck at the hooks, shimmying my shoulders to let the bra drop between our bodies.

  I was ready, I was so fucking ready.

  And I was pretty sure he groaned “fuck” under his breath a split second before his hands were at my waist, and he was lifting me up just a little off his lap at the same time his mouth dove down and those pink, wonderful lips sucked a nipple between them.

  I moaned and arched my back, pushing my breast deeper into his mouth before he gave it another suck and moved over, suckling at that nipple too, hard and then softly, two hard pulls and then one gentle one. Not wanting to break our contact but wanting to see him too, I grabbed at the bottom of his sweater and pulled it over his head.

  He was just as beautiful as I remembered from the times I’d perved on him through the window. His stomach was flat and hard with muscle, his skin tight and covered with a V-shape of light hair across his pecs and down to his navel. I wanted to lick him right there, but instead, I ran my hands over his chest, over his shoulders, lowering myself back down onto his lap so that I could settle on top of him again. On top of his dick.

  His mouth met mine at the same time my breasts brushed his chest, and I swore my nipples got even harder when they grazed the hair on his pecs. I touched him everywhere, and he touched me everywhere. And at some point, my hands went to the snap of his jeans and the zipper, and his snuck under the layer of my leggings and underwear, grabbing a handful of my bare ass and squeezing it, pulling me in even closer to his erection.